Fabless Chip Companies Ranked by 2013 Sales

Chinese and Taiwanese companies were five of the eight fastest growing fabless chip companies in a top 25 ranking compiled by IC Insights.

China's Spreadtrum led the way with a 48 percent surge in sales year-over-year, followed by Taiwan's MediaTek, Qualcomm of the US, and Europe's Dialog Semiconductor. All four companies are heavily committed to the mobile consumer equipment market.

The total fabless chip market was worth $77.91 billion in 2013, up by 8 percent from a value of $72.11 billion in 2012. The fabless sector grew faster than the overall chip market annual growth at about 4 or 5 percent, and, with the top 25 growing their sales at 12 percent while the remainder saw their contribution to the total shrink by 5 percent, it can be seen that the fabless chip market is consolidating even as it takes a greater share of the overall chip market.

The top 25 fabless chip companies for 2013 included 14 suppliers headquartered in the US, five in Taiwan, two in China, two in Europe, one in Japan, and one in Singapore.